Intimidating teacher

[chillie]

My son came home yesterday and told me that 8 boys including him in yr 10 were locked in a classroom with and by their chemistry teacher in clubs time until all the rubics cubes were handed in. After they were handed in she proceeded to shout at them that they had been disrespectful. When asked by one boy what was it that he had said or done to be disrespectful she unlocked the door and told them to all leave. She didn't answer him.
Today the same 8 boys were told by the head of year and an assistant headteacher that young female teachers can be intimidated by them and they should be more aware of how they behave.
This is in a super selective grammar school. All boys my son included can behave badly but I really feel that this was inappropriate to say to the boys. They are 14, all black or Asian and nobody shouted at her, swore or approached her. Surely if you are intimidated by teen boys then you don't take a job at an all boys secondary school?
My son who is not in her form tells me that other boys say she often locks the door, can't control the class and sometimes cries. I feel worried about this teacher, it doesn't sound like she is coping. I think she needs help. No teacher should need to lock the door, I would expect the teacher to have enough authority that the boys would not dare leave until given permission. Am I expecting too much?

Sounds like these boys are making this teacher's life a misery. Pissing around with rubix cubes and not handing them over?

Yes it sounds like the teacher needs help. It also sounds like your DS and friends need a kick up the arse.

And large groups of teen boys can be intimidating, regardless of whether you're a teacher or not, particularly if they are being bolshy and throwing their weight around. That doesn't mean the teacher is in the wrong job.

No idea what their race has to do with it.

The teacher shouldn't be locking the door, that's basic safeguarding. I would hope that she is getting support from higher up. In the meantime, tell your DS to ditch the pack mentality and start behaving himself.

Oh that poor lady, sounds like she is out of her depth.

All boys my son included can behave badly

Sounds like you're trying to deflect your son's behaviour and blame the teacher

Poor woman probably thought a super-selective school would be easier behaviour wise. I guess 14 year old boys are pains in the arse wherever you go.

But, no, she shouldn't be locking the door.

Have a think about how, exactly, she could 'have more authority'. What is it that she doesn't have? I'm assuming 'club time' is voluntary, so she's giving up her time for their benefit, but they still have so little respect they are refusing to give back equipment. It's club time, so it can hardly be blamed on 'poor teaching'. Is it because she's young? Female? Because others have said that she's easy to wind up and they wanted a go?

I say that as a Chemistry teacher who's just handed my notice in because I am so done with 'behaviour management' and losing learning time to shit like this. I signed up to teach, not to negotiate for my bloody magnets back and have to keep half an eye open for kids throwing rubbers at each other. How can they be trusted with chemicals when they can't give a Rubik's cube back?

Hopefully she'll get support from management, otherwise, don't worry, she'll be off soon with stress and hopefully the school will hire someone the boys find it easier to 'respect'.

Poor woman probably thought a super-selective school would be easier behaviour wise. I guess 14 year old boys are pains in the arse wherever you go. agree. I wouldn't like to be a teacher, some kids are undisciplined, horrendously behaved and the class sizes are too big. Teacher probably has no back up from school or parents. When she crashes its the children who unfortunately get it in the neck, and the well behaved kids just get dragged in.

My son claims he wasn't behaving badly, I don't necessarily believe him, his version and the teachers version are unlikely to be the same. I'm not debating that he was likely to be behaving badly. He has already been bollocked over it by me. Teachers don't get upset over nothing, I am a teacher myself. However there is already a stereotype of black boys being intimidating and telling 14 yr old black boys that they shouldn't intimidate young female teachers just reinforces that stereotype. Being rude to a teacher, any teacher, is wrong and should be punished but attaching it to the age and sex of the teacher just does not seem right to me.
I'm not deflecting my sons behaviour, I'm just asking if the teacher reacted appropriately? Reacting to the boys bad behaviour, yes of course she should, was it appropriate? I don't think it was. A detention, apology letter, negative mark/ sanction all would have been deserved and appropriate. They actually didn't get a punishment at all so I'm not saying this because I think she was harsh. I just think she is out of her depth and her superiors are not giving the poor woman proper support.

There's a lot of work being done in schools at the moment around violence against women and girls and what men and boys can do, which includes considering how their actions may be perceived as inappropriate/threatening/intimidating by a member of the opposite sex, even if not intended in that way.

A group of teenage boys all egging each other one - yes that is intimidating when you are a teacher - male, female, old young it does not matter, it is intimidating and can be quite frightening.

The best way this teacher can be supported is by you, and the other parents, telling their children that being in a selective school does not give them the right to bully, harrass and intimidate a member of staff.

I'm afraid that your OP does not suggest you are concerned that teacher was not being supported. It reads more like a parent defending their child's poor behaviour. If yet another STEM teacher hands in their notice and goes to find a better paid, less stressful job as a result of your son and his friends then all the other students lose out.

Good luck to the school finding a replacement.

You've accepted that the boys were messing around and probably making her life miserable. As a teacher you know you don't want hassle at the end of the day, you just want your equipment back and them to go. Instead they didn't hand the cubes back so that she felt she had to lock the door to force them to hand it over. Basically that's the background.
I can't think of one colleague that would want to be locked in a room with 8 14yos, regardless of ethnicity, so she must have felt pushed to the limits, No teacher wants to tell students that they feel intimidated by them so it's most likely that she did. Intimidation is conveyed not just in words but in demeanour and actions. They made her feel intimidated and you think that because of their ethnicity, she should just give them a pass? On the contrary, I think your child should be having a long think about how their actions intimidated her. You shouldn't be blaming her for feeling that way: you should be educating your son on how certain, maybe innocent, probably boisterously silly, actions can make women feel threatened.

She evidently is getting support as your son was spoken to by the head of year and an assistant head. As your son and the others are all very intelligent, it was explained to them how they had made the teacher feel. This may have been unintentional on their part but the effect wasn't good and they need to reflect on their behaviour. A detention, written apology etc isn't going to help them understand what they were doing wrong. Do you want your son to learn from this, or not?

You imply that they were singled out because of their racial background. If you think they were being unfairly targeted then you must take it up with school.

Do you teach 14 year old boys? What would you have said to them?

However there is already a stereotype of black boys being intimidating and telling 14 yr old black boys that they shouldn't intimidate young female teachers just reinforces that stereotype.

So should your son be allowed to get away intimidating behaviour and not he pulled up on it because of this. Groups of bolshy teen boys can be intimidating regardless of the colour of their skin.

Contact SLT and request a meeting today. I'm. Teacher this is a safeguarding issue. Not acceptable behaviour. Teacher needs help.

Year 10s are playing with rubic cubes and refusing to hand them in.
Their behaviour is appalling.
The teacher does indeed need help. From parents who need to support the school and stop this behaviour.

Super-selective doesnt mean they get to treat people like dirt and not follow the rules.

It also sounds like you're preparing to accuse the teacher of racism.

However there is already a stereotype of black boys being intimidating and telling 14 yr old black boys that they shouldn't intimidate young female teachers just reinforces that stereotype. why are you mentioning his colour again? Should the boys not be told off about being intimidating women because they are black?

That poor teacher. It sounds as if she’s not coping indeed. I hope she gets the help she needs. Your insinuation that she’s racially insensitive when she’s the one being treated inappropriately by teenage boys is quite a nasty one btw. It’s more racist to not hold black boys to the same behavior standards as their white peers because of their skin colour.

Teaching practical science is so good for all students and has applications outside of science. However, it is a very expensive subject to run in comparison to the rest. I work in science in a school, swinging on stools is my biggest bugbear, h&s but also they are about £50 to replace once the welds go, this means 10 less class practicals that year. There is a stupid TikTok craze which is encouraging theft in schools, I have had to get teachers to chase down loads of stuff where they have forgotten and put it in their pocket. If they can’t handle rubies cubes with respect, I doubt the teacher will be confident in giving them hazardous chemicals, which means they will get a demo rather than do the practical themselves.

If they can’t or won’t listen, treat equipment with respect they get a two week ban for the whole class at my current school.

What do you think waould have been an appropriate thing for the teacher to say to Asian and black boys who were misbehaving and made the teacher feel uncomfortable?

I'm asking you this as a black parent.

Never mind the rest of it - she locked them in a room! That in itself is a disciplinary offence. No one should be locking themselves in a room with or without said schoolchildren - good Lord! Imagine if it was the other way round and a male teacher locked himself in with female students - there’d be uproar! Messing around or not, closed doors and locked classrooms are not the way to go and I’d be complaining to both the school and Ofsted about that alone.

OP: IMO you are trying to your ds's behavioral problems into a race matter. Nice try but it isn't working . Unless you are prepared to come out openly and claim that the teacher wouldn't have taken the same action if those boys had been white - which I don't think you can quite bring yourself to do - then leave race out of it and accept that your ds and his mates were behaving like bullying little arses.

Tell the head op.

@HoliHormonalTigerlilly

Tell the head op.

I have a feeling the head will be already more than aware of the atrocious behaviour from this group of teenagers, as well as the apologist behaviour and Whataboutery from the parents.

Hang on. There is so much commentary on MN at the moment about the importance of men being aware that they can be perceived as intimidating to women and adjusting their actions appropriately. For example purposely crossing to the other side of the road if encountering a lone woman at night.

And yet here we are, with a number of posters suggesting that if a female teacher has the audacity to feel intimidated by a group of 14 year old boys, it is somehow her fault for not being able to ‘cope’

I4 year old boys can be big and tall but they are still child like. They probably have no idea how intimidating they can be when they are all crowded together with their mates. In their heads they are just them, children still and being silly and challenging the teacher.

It is the job of parents to explain to their sons that it might be intimidating, and what they can do about it. Walk away, sit down so the height discrepancy is less etc. don’t all join in with herd mentality. Those conversations will mean the boys grow into men who advocate for women in the most positive way.

For what it’s worth I bet the majority of those boys are lovely, but this is part of learning to be a responsible adult.

I agree with other posters, I don’t know why you’ve mentioned their race twice.

I agree with you the teacher is out of her depth and as a teacher yourself you can empathise with this.

I’d go further than just call my son out on this behaviour, I’d want to speak to teacher to discuss how my son is behaving so I’d know exactly her version of events.
It’s very likely your son is downplaying what happened . Him and his friends might have been behaving inappropriately prior to her doing what she did.
I’d definitely want the full story and work with the teacher to improve things.

Please don’t be that person who brings race into it. I say this gently. I understand the history behind you feeling like you do, I do. I’ve witnessed secondary students (friends of my son’s), using their race to get out of trouble. Behaving disgustingly in the streets bit if someone of another race calls them out on their actions, they’re racists. It’s abhorrent - both sides. There ARE teenagers who use their race to their advantage, be it whatever colour your skin has. I’d be very careful before I trust that race has anything to do with the teacher’s version of events, as I’m sure it never has anything to do with it when you have to tell students off.

I sometimes feel intimidated by groups of kids at my school, regardless of their sex and race, big groups of large and loud kids not following instructions is intimidating. I can see that.

She shouldn’t lock the door or loose control of her anger. In that situation I would escalate to someone more senior to pick up later on in the day.

Skin colour is an important factor as there is a lot of unconscious bias in schools and black kids are so much more likely to be excluded than their white peers.